Misaki picked a simple white dress from her wardrobe. No need to be so flashy on the first day. This boarding school did not require students to wear a uniform and even allowed them to go outside on their own after classes as long as they come back before 7pm.
This school is awesome! o(〃^▽^〃)o texted Misaki to Touma before sending a selfie of herself in lingerie. Since she hadn't put on her dress yet, might as well. All boys like seeing a cute girl in lingerie. Touma was no exception.
Misaki sent another message to Touma.
If I find this picture on another guy's phone, I'll show you what it means to be truly unfortunate.
Her stomach revolted at the thought of those trash masturbating to her pictures saved in their phones.
I'm serious! ໒( ᓀ ‸ ᓂ )७
Her roommate Takitsubo Rikou on the other hand, only had tracksuits in her wardrobe. Tracksuits to her are the most comfortable and practical outfit ever, so there was no reason for her to wear anything else. Definitely someone who doesn't care about her image at all. She looked so sleepy all the time that maybe she didn't have the energy in the first place.
Despite her sleepy appearance, Rikou could beat four men unconscious in the alley. The last scumbag trash standing almost had his way with a weakened Rikou if it wasn't for a brick across his head.
What a strange coincidence that the girl she met in an alleyway would end up as her roommate.
"... There's nothing wrong with pineapples on pizza," said Rikou. "I love how the sweetness of the pineapple brings the pizza to life."
"You should visit Italy someday," said Misaki. She winced in agony at the thought of eating junk pizza littered with pineapples. "Once you know what real pizza tastes like, you can never go back to eating rubbish."
"You look like a circus freak with your starry eyes, but you don't see me treat you any differently."
"Hey, there's no need to get personal."
It was difficult to tell if Rikou was joking or deeply offended because she only had one expression most of the time, but a general rule of thumb was that if Rikou raised a fist against you in class for calling her Sleepyhead for the hundredth time again, she was definitely deeply offended.
Misaki bowed before introducing herself in front of the class at the request of her form teacher, Tsukuyomi Komoe.
In Academy City where it was possible for a form teacher to be around the same height as her, her starry eyes suddenly didn't feel out of place. Adults might have found her eyes exotic, but kids often loved bullying her for being too different. The bullying got so bad that she was forced to stay at home for the safety of those losers.
The class monitor Fukiyose Seiri shook Misaki's hand with a smile, "If there's anything you need, feel free to approach me."
"Don't bother," said Rikou. "This class monitor is so useless that even a sack of potatoes is more useful than her."
"I tried my best Rikou, and I'm sorry that they're still calling you names. But I'm just a class monitor, not the Chairman of Academy City," said Seiri.
"She's probably just in a bad mood today," said Misaki to Seiri before quickly following Rikou to her seat.
Misaki was assigned a seat beside the window. Next to her was an albino girl with red eyes who introduced herself as Suzushina Yuriko. Rikou was seated next to Yuriko at the opposite end.
Yuriko had a far more pleasant vibe than Rikou even though she looked like a snow demon. The pixie hairstyle Yuriko wore looked great on her, but it was easy to mistake her as a guy if she wasn't wearing a skirt.
"I swear Rikou is a really nice girl once you get to know her. Just don't be rude and call her names," said Yuriko.
Misaki took out her textbook, "She's also someone very, very fond of pineapple on pizzas."
Today's lesson was on AIM diffusion fields, which was what all espers subconsciously emit. Even a Level 0 emits AIM diffusion fields, but only just a negligible amount. The more higher leveled one was, the stronger their AIM diffusion fields was. This was related to a concept called Personal Reality, a concept that may seem easy to understand at a glance, but their teacher Miss Tsukuyomi had to complete a masters in Personal Reality just to be qualified enough to teach them the fundamentals.
Yuriko turned to face Rikou, "You never told me you liked pineapple on pizzas."
"Because you never asked," said Rikou.
Yuriko nodded with a satisfied smile. Friends must be something very important to her if knowing a small thing she never knew before about a friend made her happy.
"Then do you like pineapple on pizzas?" said Yuriko to Misaki.
"Of course not. Pineapple does not belong on pizzas, period."
"Neither does the stars in your eyes," said Rikou.
Just how much does Rikou loves pineapple on pizzas to the point where she'd get personal at the slightest insult of it?!
"Oh yes, that reminds me. Are you free to join us for lunch later, Misaki?" said Yuriko.
"Sure, I'd love to!"
A snow demon and an eccentric girl possibly on the spectrum. Sounds like a fun group to be friends with. Or at the very least, a group where she finally wouldn't feel too out of place.
Hamazura Shiage loved Hawaiian pizza so much he finished two whole pans by himself for lunch. He happened to be a good friend of Takitsubo Rikou, the girl who was saved by Misaki's insane plan to defuse the bomb.
"I don't care what the stuck-up pizza purists say, pineapple on pizza is the best fucking thing I've ever tasted," said Shiage.
"Certainly not as bad as they said it was," said Touma.
Shiage was also his roommate and classmate. As thanks for getting Rikou out of trouble with some thugs in an alley, he decided to treat him to pizza for lunch. It was actually Misaki who saved Rikou with a brick to the thug's head, not him. They wanted him to be the hero in a story that omitted how Rikou almost let the thug had his way with her.
Misaki sent a picture of her having lunch with Rikou and another friend named Suzushina Yuriko. She had a cutesy V-sign pose with a brilliant smile. Yuriko had a more subdued smile like she wasn't used to smiling at the camera while Rikou appeared to be as sleepy as always but if you looked close enough she actually had a small smile on her face.
Friends was something Touma thought he could no longer have because he would end up cursing them with misfortune most of the time. Misaki was an exception, and as much as Touma hated to admit it, he was glad to have Misaki by his side. She was like a ball of sunshine that lit up his world.
There was another picture Misaki sent in a bikini which he deleted right after he saw the next message. He had no interest in knowing what it means to be truly unfortunate. If she's that worried, then maybe not send the picture in the first place?
Shiage was the only other person who saw the bikini picture and he definitely did not have this picture saved in his phone.
"When I think about it, Sleepyhead would look awesome in a bikini," said Shiage. "She has like the biggest boobs in her class."
"You sure Rikou is not on steroids or anything?"
Shiage laughed as he pointed to a bespectacled girl sweeping rubbish on the concrete pathway beside a convenience store, "Why don't you ask that girl over there if she's also on some boob enhancing steroids?"
The girl was around their age, but her boobs was around the same size as Rikou. The green armband over her left arm signified that she was a member of Judgement, a student police force responsible for maintaining order in Academy City. Despite Shiage knowing that, he still had the audacity to point at Judgement girl and laugh loudly about her boobs.
"Sir, if you say one more thing about my breasts, I'll detain you in custody for 48 hours," said the angry Judgement girl to Shiage.
"I know my rights, Miss Judgement. You have no power to arrest me unless I'm misusing my powers," said Shiage.
A smug girl with a wide forehead snapped her fan shut, "Apologize to that girl right now, or I'll-"
"Or what?" said Shiage. "Who the hell are you anyway?"
The smug girl glared at them, as if they had committed a crime for not knowing who she was, "My name is Kongou Mitsuko. Even if you don't know who I am, you must at least know about Kongou Airlines, the biggest aviation company in the whole of Japan."
Touma sighed. This was getting way out of hand.
"It's all our fault for insulting that girl over there. Sorry. Let's go, Shiage," said Touma.
Mitsuko snapped open her fan, "I'm not going to let you two off that easily."
Touma raised his right arm and negated a concentrated blast of wind from Mitsuko.
Mitsuko blinked in confusion before her smug smile returned, "So you do have an ability. I was wrong to think that you were a useless Level 0 scum like the others."
"Level has nothing to do with this. Judge people by their actions, not by their levels!" said Touma. She reminded him too much of the trigger-happy mobs who declared their parents were demons to be purged from this world just because they gave birth to him.
"I've never met any Level 0s worthy of any respect. All they do is whine and whine about how low leveled they are without thinking about putting any effort in improving. I think I was being nice when I call them scums," said Mitsuko.
"You're just a fucking moron."
Touma dodged a cylindrical robot ejected by Mitsuko's ability. The robot crashed into a lamppost behind him.
"What are you waiting for Miss Judgement?" said Shiage. "Arrest that bitch for destroying public property."
The Judgement girl hesitatingly took out her handcuffs, "Miss, I'm sorry but you clearly violated a law."
"You must be joking! You can't arrest me. I was just trying to protect you from these two perverts," said Mitsuko.
A screeching sound rang out.
The Judgement girl and Mitsuko fell on their knees in agony.
Touma grabbed Mitsuko with his right hand, hoping that it might somehow make her feel better, "Are you alright?"
Mitsuko heaved a sigh of relief, "I don't know what you just did, but the sound doesn't hurt as much as before."
The Judgement girl grabbed hold of Touma's right pinky, "My senior mentioned that there was a device that could paralyze espers by emitting a special kind of sound to disrupt their AIM field. I think his right hand is somehow negating the effects of that sound."
Touma dialed for an ambulance with his left hand. Meanwhile, there were countless others in a similar situation as Mitsuko and Judgement girl, but there was no way he could help everyone with just one right hand.
"I see," said Mitsuko. "You must have some kind of molecule manipulation ability, spiky scumbag."
"That's not actually-"
"Next time, treat girls with the respect they deserve. They're not objects for you creeps to be commenting on."
"I… never mind."
Shiage picked up a robotic limb near the lamppost before flames erupted from a window at the upper levels of a shopping mall.
"Stay here. I'll go find the source of that sound," said Shiage.
Touma shook off the two girls holding his right hand and chased after Shiage into an alley. Shiage would most likely get himself killed trying to do this alone.
"What's the plan?" said Touma.
"Disable the sound and then beat those bastards up."
"Let's just go with disable the sound."
Touma picked up a trash can lid and a broken beer bottle. A lousy substitute for a sword and a shield that would probably fall apart after a few seconds in actual combat.
"Those bastards who put that bomb on Sleepyhead should be here somewhere," said Shiage.
Rikou liked wandering into alleys when left alone. This was how she stumbled upon a suspicious group of thugs and ended up having a bomb placed on her. Just like Shiage, Rikou probably has no sense of danger at all.
Touma and Shiage hid behind a stack of crates when they heard chattering. The source of the sound and the group of thugs behind this whole thing must be right up ahead after a corner.
"Which corner?" said Touma.
"Good question. Left?"
Pop vocals blared cheerfully from Shiage's phone.
"Or we can just take a corner each!"
Touma hurled the broken beer bottle at a thug before raising his trash can lid against a barrage of bullets.
"You think you can buy enough time for me to change my ringtone?" said Shiage.
"Seriously?!"
"Guess I'll have to change it later."
The loud clanging came to a gradual stop. They were out of bullets. He hurled the lid like a frisbee and knocked out the remaining thugs.
Touma leaped to the right to face the last thug with a gun pointed at him.
"You destroy the Capacity Down, and I'll shoot your friend over here!" said the thug.
Shiage was behind him facing a van equipped with a stereo-like system. A robotic limb had pierced through the radar dish attached at the top of the van.
"Calm down. We're all Level 0s here. I know being a Level 0 sucks, but there's no need to kill innocents," said Touma.
"I've never killed anyone. I just wanted to send a message to them."
"Them?"
"Bullshit. You just fucking set a bomb off at Seventh Mist. Do you have any idea just how many people are there?" said Shiage.
"That wasn't me, you fucking piece of shit."
"So you expect us to believe you and let this go?" said Shiage.
The thug pulled the trigger.
Touma charged towards the thug, "Destroy the Capacity Down!" as more bullets went through his body. The pain only served as an adrenaline shot to keep him standing and react even faster against the thug's attempt to physically hit him with the gun.
The thug threw an overhead strike, "I've lost everything because of them!"
Touma ducked and sent an uppercut across the thug's jaw, "I've lost people too. I also wished that there was something I could do to change that. But there was nothing I could do!"
The thug smashed Touma's nose with the pistol, "Spare me your fucking hypocrisy. At the end of the day, you're just a coward afraid to fight against the darkness."
Touma clenched his fist. He did not know what exactly did the thug meant by 'the darkness', but there was a darkness in his heart he once fought against. If the world hated him so much, and refused to let him die, then why not just destroy it? That thug was right. He was a coward. The reason why he hadn't turned into a terrorist like that thug was because of his fear of losing whatever he had left.
"If you think your childish actions can change anything, then let me first destroy that fucked up delusion of yours!"
He channeled whatever energy he had left into his fist and knocked the thug unconscious
Touma collapsed onto a pool of his own blood, "Do me a favor and call Anti-Skill. I don't think I can stay awake any longer."
"Sorry," said Shiage. "I just busted both my hands trying to destroy that damm Capacity Down. Turns out that metal is an excellent conductor of electricity. Cool finisher speech by the way."
"Thanks. It sure sounded a lot better than shut the fuck up, you public nuisance," said Touma before his consciousness slipped away into darkness.
Suzushina Yuriko never had much real life experience with boys, but she was sure that boys loved games like Dragon Quest or Fatal Kombat, not funny dating simulators like Cat Paradise. There was even a 50% discount on Fatal Kombat 7.
"All men are the same," said Rikou. "What they truly love most are cute girls with large breasts. The larger, the better. I know from personal experience."
"I'm sure Touma would like Fatal Kombat 7 more than Cat Paradise," said Misaki. "Also, you're not that cute."
"See Yuriko, all they care about are breasts. Looks don't even matter to them. A shallow game like Cat Paradise would be perfect for him."
Rikou thought of buying a game for Touma as thanks for helping her out to chase away some thugs at the alleyway. The problem of what game to buy could be easily solved by calling Touma, but that would ruin the surprise.
"You should also buy a game for Shiage for always making him so worried about you," said Yuriko. "And me as well."
Rikou liked exploring alleyways. No matter how dangerous it was, she didn't care. When the mood strikes, there's no stopping her. Thank god nothing bad happened so far. The best Rikou could agree on as a compromise was to do her exploring during the day before sunset.
Rikou grabbed three copies of Cat Paradise, "You can't call yourself a real gamer until you played Cat Paradise."
Yuriko nursed her cheeks with a mock frown. Associating Cat Paradise with the term real gamers was like a slap across her face.
"That hurts. And to think I treated you as my best friend."
A light bulb lit up within Yuriko's mind. Time to end this senseless fight over which game to get for Touma.
Yuriko grabbed a copy of Rebellious Kunoichi, "Why don't we go with this? There's both fighting and boobs in this game. I think it's absolutely perfect."
"No," said both Misaki and Rikou.
"But… why?"
Misaki pointed to a ridiculously busty girl on the front cover of My Lovely Stepsister, "It's simple. When a man gets aroused, blood from his brain gets diverted to his genitals."
Rikou then pointed to Fatal Kombat 7, "Due to the lack of blood in his brain, he is unable to focus on the fighting and ends up losing too many lives. Those sluts now becomes an annoying distraction instead of eye candy to be enjoyed while fighting."
"Therefore," said Misaki. "Getting Touma a game with either 100% girls or 100% fighting would give him the best experience possible."
Yuriko resignedly shrugged her shoulders, "Boys aren't that complicated. I think he'd be happy with whatever we give him."
Participating in raids in a game called Fantasy Online with other players through voice chat was the only time Yuriko had any interactions with boys. Young or old, friendly or unfriendly, all of them were simple people who just wanted a good time with their friends through games.
She also wanted to have a good time with her friends just like anyone else, but until she learned how to properly control her powers, that would always be a dream she kept on praying for it to be true one day. All it took was one slip up, and her friends would either end up dead or permanently disabled.
There was something… a strange sound… no!
Yuriko hugged her knees in tears. Powerful tremors. Things breaking apart and smashing against each other. People screaming in agony. She couldn't bear to look. Her powers were going out of control again because of that sound!
"Yuriko, listen. I need you to calm down," said Rikou.
Rikou had the ability to manipulate AIM fields to a certain extent. If she concentrated hard enough, she could use her ability to bypass her passive Reflection and touch her without any grave repercussions. Whatever the sound was, it was specifically meant to disrupt the AIM fields of every esper within its range and send them out of control.
"Everyone will be okay, right?"
Rikou nodded, "Misaki is doing her best to shut off that sound, so promise me you'd do your best and stay calm, okay?"
"Okay."
Yuriko closed her eyes and took in deep breaths. She needed to be calm for Rikou so that she would have an easier time correcting the distortion in her AIM field.
The sound stopped.
Rikou lied.
It was the same as always.
Blood of her precious friend, all around her.
Facing Hebitani Tsuguo was three of Wataru's men wrapped up in ropes like a Christmas gift.
"We'll never work for an ugly bastard like you," spat one of Wataru's men.
"Wataru will always be our leader, you fucking traitor!" said another one of Wataru's men.
Under Wataru's leadership, Big Spider was a baby throwing tantrums that the adults laugh off as a cute nuisance. Wataru was naive to think he could send a message to them without hurting innocent people. Now that Wataru has been arrested by Anti-Skill, it was time for the baby to throw tantrums that would bring those adults to their knees.
Tsuguo instructed his underlings to drag those three men to the scrapyard near their hideout. If they insist on being so stubborn, fine. Their organs should fetch a good price at the black market. Nashio Gonshiro was another stubborn fuck who set a booby trap for his underlings at Seventh Mist as a fuck you to him. Luckily, the fucker's booby trap caught his underlings after they were done with the job.
He dialed a number on his phone, "Is this Mr Aritomi? How soon will we get paid for that job at Seventh Mist?"
The job involved them getting past Seventh Mist's security and hack into the mall's PA system to play Mr Aritomi's special audio file. God knows what the hell he was trying to achieve with his 'experiment'.
"Ah yes," said Mr Aritomi, "The data we've gathered with your help has-"
"Just shut the fuck up and pay us already."
"Very well."
Academy City will soon learn that Level 0s are humans that deserve some fucking respect, not cheap disposable utensils.
Author's Note:
I guess by hearing the name Aritomi, the Silent Party arc would probably come to mind. It will be nothing like what you see in Railgun S, that I promise you.
If you're wondering where is Touma's class, it's next to Misaki's class. I wanted to talk more about Touma's class in this chapter, but it somehow ended up strange, so I decided to shift it to the next chapter instead.
By the way to the two arguing Guests, like what Fortitude501 said, please take your fight somewhere else. I'll be deleting any future reviews if it isn't about the story, thanks.
You know, I actually can't just write what I like. It's always a compromise between what the readers would want to read, and what I want to write. Just as I spent time writing this story, you the readers also spent time reading this story.
Anyway, I hope you like this chapter and do leave a review down below if you have any comments.
